Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Wilmington, NC – Programming for the week of October 6, UNCW Community Link, an interactive, public affairs television show, chats with Todd Berliner, chair of the Department of Film Studies at UNCW and local authorities regarding the N.C. Death Penalty.

H.E. “Hunter” Thompson, Jr. speaks with the UNCW Chair and Associate Professor of Film Studies, Todd Berliner, about the film industry’s future in Southeastern North Carolina. The film studies department at UNCW began two years ago with 40 students and today instructs more than 200. Governor Mike Easley said recently that he is interested in bringing more film opportunities to the area, which has previously attracted students to UNCW’s program, and will certainly draw more. Frank Capra, Jr, president of E.U.E Screen Gems Studios, is a distinguished visiting professor at the university and teaches The Business of Film, a studio seminar in film production, as well as courses in great directors.

This week, Betty Ann Sanders speaks with Ben David, assistant district attorney for New Hanover and Pender Counties and UNCW’s philosophy and religion professor emeritus, James Megivern, about the death penalty in North Carolina. Megivern published the book, The Death Penalty: an Historical & Theological Survey in 1997. The book took him 18 years to write and discusses matters regarding death as a penalty for crime. He points out that the states that do not have a death penalty have much less crime and murder, also “85 percent of executions happen in the old confederacy.”

David, who has tried several murder cases, some that have been sentenced to death, says there is an average of ten and a half years from the time convicts are sentenced until the government signs a release to allow execution. In those ten years DNA often proves them innocent.

UNCW Community Link reaches beyond the television studio to allow citizens to sound off on compelling issues facing Southeastern North Carolina. Hosts Sanders and Thompson engage and challenge the region’s newsmakers and opinion-shapers and then ask viewers to voice their opinions. Through collaboration with the Southeast Public Interest Network of North Carolina (www.SpinNC.org), citizens can use the latest Internet technologies to continue the dialog on show topics and community ideas. UNCW Community Link is brought to you in part by the following sponsors: Time Warner Cable, Wilmington Star News and WHQR Public Radio.

For more information on this show’s topics please visit:

North Carolina Department of Corrections

http://www.doc.state.nc.us/DOP/deathpenalty/

The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

http://www.ncadp.org/index.html

UNCW Film Studies Department

http://www.uncwil.edu/filmstudies/





Tune into UNCW Community Link

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7 p.m. Fridays The Learning Network on Time Warner Ch 5 and Charter Communications Ch 12

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Government Channel 8

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Time Warner Channel 10

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Time Warner Channel 10